NASA Center in Virginia Braces for 'Frankenstorm' Hurricane Sandy

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As Hurricane Sandy barrels toward the U.S. East Coast, NASA is
battening the hatches at its Virginia coast launch and flight
testing grounds to prepare for a literal wallop from the oncoming
"Frankenstorm." A private rocket is on a launch pad at the site
awaiting its maiden flight, and must also be protected.

The space agency's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island,
Va., is bracing for potential flooding and high winds from Sandy
when it arrives early next week. The storm, currently a Category
1 hurricane, is expected to merge with cold weather fronts early
next week to
become a more powerful storm.

"We're watching it closely," Wallops spokesman Keith Koehler told
SPACE.com Friday (Oct. 26). "We've started preparations like
putting aircraft into hangars and clearing those hangars as best
we can, just taking the appropriate precautions."

The Wallops Flight Facility is the center of NASA's suborbital
research projects and oversees balloon and sounding rocket
launches from the Virginia's Eastern Shore and elsewhere. The
facility is staffed by 1,100 workers and also serves as a hub for
aeronautics research.

Koehler said that on Sunday (Oct. 28), the flight center will be
closed, with only a skeleton crew of Wallops staff, security and
emergency personnel remaining on Wallops Island. A public night
sky observing event scheduled for Saturday was canceled due to
the weather, he added.

Wallops is also the home of new commercial spaceflight efforts
and the
first private Antares rocket by the Virginia-based company
Orbital Sciences Corp., stands partially assembled atop a launch
pad at the nearby Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. The Antares
rocket's first stage was moved to the launch pad on Oct. 1 for
fueling and other tests.

Propellant hoses to the rocket are being detached to help prepare
it for the upcoming storm rains and winds, Orbital Sciences
spokesman Barron Beneski told SPACE.com. The rocket's nearby
hangar is also being safeguarded against the storm.

Orbital Sciences has a $1.9 billion contract to launch at least
eight cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station
for NASA using its
Antares rockets and Cygnus, a new robotic spacecraft. The
first Antares rocket is slated to launch by the end of the year.

As of Saturday morning, Hurricane Sandy was about 165 miles (270
kilometers) north of Great Abaco Island and 335 miles (540 km)
southeast of Charleston, S.C. It had maximum sustained wind
speeds of75 mph (120 kph) and was moving north-northeast at about
10 mph (17 kph).

The storm caused at least 43 deaths as it barreled across the
Bahamas in the Caribbean, according to news reports.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are
tracking Hurricane Sandy from space using several satellites. The
hurricane has also been seen from the International Space Station
in Earth orbit.